


Death in the Family

by Chelzbuckwheat



Category: Hat Films - Fandom
Genre: Happy ending???, Mentions of Funerals, Other, Vague allusions to past abuse, mentions of family death, mostly just a hella cathartic hurt fic, sense of closure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chelzbuckwheat/pseuds/Chelzbuckwheat
Summary: Alex has kept his secret for this long - and now he doesn't have to worry about breaking his promise to himself.





	Death in the Family

Alex peered out of his jeep, not wanting to leave it. This would be the last time he would come here. It didn’t have to be, but it was hard to believe he would want to come back. Not to the graveyard, but to this town.

He sighed, reaching into the passenger seat to grab his lighter and his pack of cigarettes, already half gone. He didn’t smoke often, really only in the fall when the weather reminded him of when his friends would all sneak away at the fair and share a pack. He tried not to smoke when he was sad - but that didn’t stop him yesterday when he fumbled through asking the cashier for a pack of whatever his mom used to smoke.

He figured he would need something to keep his hands and mind busy on the ride to his grandma’s house. And he had been right.

He flicked the lighter, hiding the end of the cigarette from the small breeze slipping in through the cracked window. After this one, he promised himself. As if he hadn’t said it twice before. He was running out of time - there was a storm coming. He had watched the weather channel before leaving his childhood home-away-from-home, ignoring the insistent chatter of his dad’s side of the family. He left without much ceremony, shuffling through the hugs and handshakes, humming to offers to visit his far-spread family members.

He didn’t want to fly out to Florida over the winter or come see someone’s new house during the spring. But he knew that before he drove out here - he came for one person, two if he included himself.

The heat against his knuckles and lips brought Alex out of his thoughts. He hated the last few puffs of a cigarette, but sucked them down because it was almost $8 for this shit. Tossing the butt into his psuedo ashtray (a refurbished tin case now filled with ashes, tobacco, and butts), Alex took the keys from the ignition, pocketed his phone, and snatched his smokes before he could talk himself out of it.

He was here earlier in the day, though the weather matched his mood now. It had been sunny and warm during the funeral - the more optimistic members of the family had said it was a happy sign. Smith let them think whatever - everyone was grieving, but not everyone wanted to be miserable. They had laid grandma next to pops, a man Alex never met, but was told he resembled. His aunt joked that’s why grandma loved him so much, something Alex never agreed to but enjoyed to hear regardless.

There was thankfully no one else here. Alex would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't taking his time tiptoeing through the tombstones towards her grave. Despite the funeral only being earlier in the morning, the exposed earth had been covered with a blanket of sod. It was weird to think about. So Alex sat down, leaning against the back of the gravestone instead. He stared up at the clouds, gray and crawling.

“Hi again,” he said dumbly, unsure of what the fuck he was doing. He quickly reached for the cigarettes in his vest pocket. He smacked them against his palm, packing in the tobacco out of habit. He lit another and watched the trail of smoke disappear. “I know I shouldn’t. I promise it’s just this pack,” he said between drags. Alex smiled softly, resting his head against the tombstone. “Makes me nauseated anyways.” Alex let himself close his eyes and listen to the world around him, trying to center himself.

“I got to watch the sunset last night at the lake. You would have loved it. Our spot is the best place around to watch it.” Alex took a drag, trying to get the nerves to leave with the smoke. The buzz in his chest helped him focus on something other than his haywire emotions. “The family came over for dinner after the ceremony. The garlic bread wasn’t burnt though, so like, what’s the point?” Grandma would always burn her homemade garlic bread - it was bad luck not to she had joked when the cousins pestered her. Alex took another breath of the cigarette, holding the smoke until it burned at his tongue.

“Do you remember the first time we met - I was, what, 10?” It was over 15 years ago, when Alex’s mom took him to the local park and he met his dad’s side of the family. Out of thin air, his family had doubled, even tripled with all the in-laws and cousins. Alex had grown to hate the family tree assignments in school - so many half-siblings, in-laws, cousins that he bothered not to include any of them.

But that didn’t matter the first night he met grandma. She had round cheeks and small squinty eyes, warm hugs and a pitter-patter laugh. Alex loved her from the first time they met. It wasn’t much later when Alex started to spend every summer during secondary school with his grandma. Alex was spoiled with good food, a cold pool, and new friends every day. It was wildly different from the other 10 months, which were spent mostly by himself stuck at home while his mom ran between her jobs. It was hard not to prefer the summer months, when Alex got to pretend to be someone else and live a different life. It always felt like waking from a dream on the drive back.

“I hate to admit it, but I felt like a stranger with my own family. I didn’t know most of the people in your photo albums. Despite everyone being there, it was lonely without you. I mean, you know how I feel about the step-momster.” Alex laughed, remembering how grandma used to tut at him when he would roll his eyes around his least favorite family member. She had confided she was not her biggest fan either, but grandma was better at making conversation than Alex. It was at dinner when Alex realized grandma was one of the only people who had became part of Alex’s family after all these years. Everyone else were people tied to him through obligation, some harder to love and forgive than others. And one who was impossible to love or forgive, obligations be damned.

Alex frowned despite himself. It was the last time he would be in this small town and he was happy about it. To think shit had gone south so quickly after his first summer - and to think no one knew. Alex flicked the stack of ashes off the end of the cigarette - to be fair, he didn’t know what was going on until much later. But he promised himself grandma wouldn’t ever know about it.

“Well g-ma,” Alex started. “Depending on what happens after you die, you either know nothing or you know everything.” Alex closed his eyes and sighed. “And if you know everything, you know why I couldn’t tell you and" - Alex choked back a sob -"I’m not sorry for not telling you.” He hadn’t cried at the ceremony, at the dinner. But Alex let himself cry leaning against the gravestone. Alex sighed weakly, sucking in the last angry bite of his cigarette. He let it smolder in his hand before swiping it across the tread of his boot, pinching onto it as he stared into the sky.

“I had to come though.” Alex curled his legs closer to him, futzing around against the stone. “If I didn’t, it would have felt like I let him win. I know it’s not like that, but sometimes it feels like it is.” Alex huffed a laugh, looking back up at the clouds. “It’s so fucked grandma. Every time I thought of you, he was there, lingering. The three of us are so intricately connected. The lying, the joy - each makes the other worse.”

Alex hated he couldn’t grieve normally, that it was all tangled up with this bullshit. Almost 5 years and several months of therapy passed from when Alex got out of the situation he had been groomed into. In one of his self-righteous moments, Alex blocked his accounts and cut off any mutual friends. It didn’t stop the guilt or anger, but it made Alex feel in control. Grandma’s passing sort of threw a wrench in all of that.

“I hope you understand why I didn’t tell you and why I’m not telling anyone on your side.” When Alex had told his mom, it nearly killed him. He had been reaching out for help for so long, at first without realizing it and later on more purposefully. Alex had become scared for his future, but was too scared of rejection to come outright with his secret - it would be better to confirm a guess than admit the truth. So when his mom brought it up, he let her guess, practically begged her to try to find out. But when she finally guessed what had been happening, she blamed herself for not knowing, for not seeing the signs. To know that would happen again with grandma, someone who set boundaries to protect him, someone who believed them when they said it's not that big of a deal, was not worth it.

“I’ve had over five years to think about it, to weigh the options. And I do think I’m doing the right thing,” Alex explained, leaning away from the grave, crossing his legs. “To make everyone go through my story, to feel like mom felt - to me, that’ll never be worth getting justice.” Alex bitterly smiled. “Even after everything, I still cover for him. But I think it’s because he’s not worth the effort. What would I even get out of the truth? Sympathy? Closure?”

“I don’t want the one and seem to have the other, when I’m not mad at least.” Alex groaned as he stretched, rolling onto his feet. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m glad I don’t have to see or talk to him again. Not because I hate him, but because I hate what he did to me. But I’m in no rush to hope he’s happy either.” Alex laid his hand on the gravestone, the cold of the marble a welcome distraction from how he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. The first roll of thunder was coming in. He was glad the storm held out until he had said everything he needed to get off his chest.

“I know you loved us, separately and when we were together, even if it wasn’t what you thought.” Alex sniffed, trying to keep himself from tearing up again. “I love you g-ma and I hate that I’m grieving and celebrating at the same time. But, I know you’d love me regardless.” He tapped the gravestone and turned away. "See you at sunset grandma."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, remember to reach out to your loved ones often and if you are ever going through a difficult time, you don't have to go alone.


End file.
